Bears' 52 pass plays, 11 handoffs doesn't cut it

Smith: 'We can't win football games with that kind of balance'

September 19, 2011|By Brad Biggs, Chicago Tribune reporter

Seven times in 91 seasons, the Bears offense has run the ball 12 times or fewer in a game.

Four of those have come during the career of Matt Forte that spans 50 games, most recently Sunday in a 30-13 loss at New Orleans when offensive coordinator Mike Martz called 52 pass plays (45 Jay Cutler passes, six sacks, one scramble) and 11 handoffs.

"Surprised?" Forte said Monday morning. "Yeah. Ten rushes is not really a whole lot. But when you get behind pretty quick in the second half, I think the mindset was to pass the ball and try to get big chunks of yardage back or get a quick score in the passing game."

Thing is, offensive coordinator Mike Martz went pass happy way before the score got lopsided. At the point the Bears allowed their first sack with 10 minutes, 2 seconds remaining in the third quarter, they trailed the Saints 16-13 and Martz had dialed up 29 pass plays and 10 runs.

Forte had a 42-yard gain on his second carry and had just eight more rushes the rest of the game in a one-sided effort that looked suspiciously like Martz's early-season work from 2010, when the Bears had 14 carries in one game and twice rushed only 16 times.

"I know the balance wasn't there," coach Lovie Smith said. "All I can say is we'll get it better. We can't win football games with that kind of balance."

Smith has seen it before. Three times in 2009 under former offensive coordinator Ron Turner, the Bears ran the ball 12 times or fewer. Turner was fired after the season by the coach who once talked about his team getting of the bus running.

Martz must have forgotten about the subtle roster moves made during the offseason to make the Bears more run-oriented. Tight end Greg Olsen was dumped to allow the offense to feature more effective blockers.

The game plan only aided the Saints' pass-rushing effort, allowing them to feast on Cutler, who couldn't slow them down with any hot reads behind a makeshift offensive line missing two starters after right tackle Gabe Carimi was lost to a right knee injury at halftime.

"Happens like that sometimes," Smith said. "We'll clean it up."

Ultimately, Smith is the man in charge and oversees all the decisions made. Play-calling didn't even out a year ago until after a meeting during the off week. In eight of the 11 regular-season games since, the Bears have had more rushes than passes.

"Yes, I have (spoken to Martz since the loss)," Smith said. "I'm not going to sit here and tell you the reason why, I'm just going to tell you we have to get the balance a lot better and we will. We didn't do that for a lot of different reasons."

Was one of them for fear they would not be able to have success running against the Saints?

"I'm going to tell you again, we didn't have the balance we needed," Smith replied. "I'm not going to give you anymore reasons why. We'll have it better this week. That's my answer."

Perhaps Martz will have some answers when he speaks Wednesday. Until then, you're left to wonder why the Bears would so clearly abandon Forte, who they regard to be maybe their best offensive player.

"If they know we're passing the ball just like (Sunday), they'll pin their ears back and bring everybody," Forte said. "It's hard to pick up everybody when they're blitzing like that. And when they do, you've got to hurt them in the passing game. We didn't get the ball off or when we threw it, it wasn't completed.

"You can't put blame on any one person or one position. It's a team effort. So everybody has got to be better at blitz protection and blitz pickup and notify who to get and how to get them and all that good stuff. You can't put all the blame on the offensive line."